Regarding Eddie Skrocki:

I was a friend of Eddie's for 27 years. He was a fun and crazy guy. He liked being called "Crazy Eddie". Eddie gave me a VHS copy of his original tape: "The Gardener's Diary, with Ed Skrocki". It's 25 minutes in length and was recorded June 1998.

He loved his plants and would work on them sun-up to sun-down. During winter months he enjoyed his match book collection of over a million matchbooks. He would sell them via snail mail to other collectors. Also during the winter months he would collect small tree branches from his wooded property and dip them in paint and throw glitter on them for holiday sales. Every year relentless he would give a couple bundles to me for my Mom who enjoyed displaying them for the holiday season. Eddie would buy several hearses in his life time to deliver his plants to various locations. The license plate read (and I have a photo): "Not Dead". He had an original bust of Mr Packard in the Packard Bedroom. And there is so much more interesting things about Ed Skrocki.

I visited with Eddie many times and stayed over weekends sometimes. Each of his historic home's bedrooms had a theme. One was the Packard Room, another was the Egyptian Room, and another was the Jungle Room. Not sure what his room was called. Each room was decorated with theme related sheets, pictures, lamps, and other accessories. Eddie was a hoot!

Not sure if any of you will receive this message, but if you do, please respond and I'll see if I can post the video mentioned above on YouTube for you to enjoy. I have plenty of fun stories and photos about Ed Skrocki. He was definitely, one of a kind. And we miss him.

How lucky for you to have known such an interesting man! I would love to hear more stories about him and if you can, I would enjoy seeing the video also. Thanks for sharing your experiences and knowledge of Eddie with us.

Interesting stories.

What interesting information Tvaltrek, and a great big to ATP. I agree with Julia and Chris, would love to hear more Ed Skrocki stories, and see the video. What a treat for all of us that love the plants he introduced.

Can't wait for all the others here to read your post.

Tvaltrek, welcome to ATP!

Thanks for sharing your stories, I would love to hear more. I would also be very interested in seeing the video.

Welcome! Please tell us more......

Tvaltrek welcome and yep I'm with all the others = love to see the video and hear more stories!!! Thanks for sharing...do you grow semps or any other specific plants??

That's why I started this thread on Ed. I never met him but on 'The Gardening Channel'. He seems like one in a million. I tried to see him but I guess I was too late. He's the reason I got interested in Sempervivum. The world is missing one great human being. Thank you for the information and welome also. Let us know about u-tube is successful.
Stush

Ed was an amazing person. Before I went to graduate school we would trade introductions so I had a complete set of the plants Ed had introduced through '76 plus a number of seedlings that weren't introduced but were useful in breeding. My 'Mulberry Wine' comes from his #51, for example. He came East to learn how to cross but decided it was way too much work. Somehow his approach of raising thousands of seedlings seemed like lots of work too!

Ed's plants were very important ones in bringing new colors, patterns and sizes to the group. We are still using his plants in hybridizing. He produced so many new hybrids that the US became the center of hybridizing, not Europe.

As you know Semps are relatively inexpensive plants. He became interested in hostas later and one of his seedlings went for $700 at a hosta society auction. He thought the hosta people were insane! (Having worked extensively with both groups there does seem to be more obsessive people in the hosta world!)

Kevin

More great information on who Ed Skrocki was.

How wonderful to have been able to work with someone like Ed.

You know, great men walk amoung us and seldom do we get to know one. How lucky for those who knew him and sadness for those like me to have missed him.
Stush

Does anyone have his Sempervivum 'Imperial'?

Hi treehugger, and a big to ATP.
I can't seem to find that one available in the U.S. Have you tried emailing Don Mylin at SMG to see if it is in his collection? https://www.storesonlinepro.co...

Tvaltrek said:Regarding Eddie Skrocki:

I was a friend of Eddie's for 27 years. He was a fun and crazy guy. He liked being called "Crazy Eddie". Eddie gave me a VHS copy of his original tape: "The Gardener's Diary, with Ed Skrocki". It's 25 minutes in length and was recorded June 1998.

He loved his plants and would work on them sun-up to sun-down. During winter months he enjoyed his match book collection of over a million matchbooks. He would sell them via snail mail to other collectors. Also during the winter months he would collect small tree branches from his wooded property and dip them in paint and throw glitter on them for holiday sales. Every year relentless he would give a couple bundles to me for my Mom who enjoyed displaying them for the holiday season. Eddie would buy several hearses in his life time to deliver his plants to various locations. The license plate read (and I have a photo): "Not Dead". He had an original bust of Mr Packard in the Packard Bedroom. And there is so much more interesting things about Ed Skrocki.

I visited with Eddie many times and stayed over weekends sometimes. Each of his historic home's bedrooms had a theme. One was the Packard Room, another was the Egyptian Room, and another was the Jungle Room. Not sure what his room was called. Each room was decorated with theme related sheets, pictures, lamps, and other accessories. Eddie was a hoot!

Not sure if any of you will receive this message, but if you do, please respond and I'll see if I can post the video mentioned above on YouTube for you to enjoy. I have plenty of fun stories and photos about Ed Skrocki. He was definitely, one of a kind. And we miss him.

Kevin, is that YouTube still available? I would enjoy watching it.

I too search U-tube and didn't find anything. Will do so again. I had copied the story of Ed when it was on tv. I think the Victory Garden when they used to do stories of other people in the business. Can't find it now. I hope I didn't copy over it. I'm sure I didn't.
Stush

I'd love to find some video of him!

Has anyone seen this semp for sale? http://www.perennials.com/plan...
I have done a YouTube and Google search for videos. No results found.

Lynn, have you seen this? http://www.rockstarplants.com/...

I clicked on the "Find a retailer" link at the top and put in my zip code. They came up with a bunch of nurseries in our area, although I haven't contacted any of them to see if they have Bravo. From the looks of it, I'm guessing they are more landscapers than retailers, but might be able to source it...

And if you know anyone going to Russia, scroll down and Bravo is there... http://greenboom.ru/torg/topic...

I hope you can find a source -- this looks like a beauty and it would be a shame if it were lost! MR

I just looked on SMG's site, they have it. Thank you MR.